Salman Khan has spoken about the health complications and injuries that affected his fitness in recent years, admitting that he felt he had let down fans who have admired his physique over the decades. The actor discussed the subject on the latest season of Koffee With Karan, where he also explained why he decided to take off his shirt during an episode of Bigg Boss.
What’s Happening
During the conversation, host Karan Johar showed Salman a clip from Bigg Boss in which the actor removed his shirt. Impressed by his physique, Karan asked, “How do you look like this at 61?”
Responding to the question, Salman said, “A lot of hard work. A lot of sacrifices. I just added more of every good thing, and reduced every bad thing.”
The actor explained that he wanted to regain his fitness after a period marked by several physical setbacks. He said he felt it was unfair to fans who had followed his fitness journey and associated him with his shirtless appearances on screen.
“See, for the people who have been die-hard fans of the shirtless me, there was a phase in my life right now because of a lot of injuries and stuff like that. It was unfair to them. No matter how old you are, it is unfair on them to see me like that,” he said.
Salman also detailed the medical issues he had faced over the years, tracing several of them back to his work on the 2016 film Sultan. The actor mentioned injuries affecting his knee, back and shoulder, along with other health complications.
“My head was broken. And then some hernia happened and also some stuff here. My shoulder was messed up. And all this came in from Sultan – knee and back and then the trigeminal neuralgia and then the aneurysm. But that is not any justification for how I was looking then,” Salman said.
Despite the challenges, the actor acknowledged that he believed he should have maintained his fitness, considering the influence he has on audiences across age groups. He spoke about how fans who grew up watching him now introduce his fitness as an example to their own children.
“There is that thing that I shouldn’t have let go for that time. No matter what my struggle was with my own physicality, I shouldn’t have let go of that. Because there are a lot of people who get inspired by me. The older and the younger generation. People who have grown up with me, and they have got kids, and they see me like this at the age of 60. So they say, ‘Dad, if he is looking like this, why can’t you look like that?'” he said.
Background
Salman further revealed that seeing people who are fitter than him motivates him to work harder on his own physical health. According to the actor, observing their fitness encourages him to return to the gym and push himself.
Explaining his decision to remove his shirt on Bigg Boss, Salman said online trolling did not bother him. Instead, he viewed the criticism as motivation to improve himself and show audiences progress the next time they saw him.
“Their trolling doesn’t matter to me. How do they know what I am going to do next? So, I will take that energy, and I will convert it into positivity for me. And the ones who give me the positivity, I will make sure that when they see me next time, they will see me better than the last time,” he said.